The first section of the book on children and the law explores the way the legal system affects the lives of children, adolescents, and their families. One author argues for the development of a psychology of jurisprudence wherein the goals of legal action are based on an understanding of the way the law affects people rather than on an arbitrary set of rules. Other authors present strategies for ensuring that the legal system responds to children and families. The second section focuses on criminal responsibility, including psychodynamics, the insanity defense, psychopaths, and mental illnesses and defects. In exploring mental health policies, the third section deals with therapeutic jurisprudence, the use of community mental health centers to provide comprehensive mental health services to local jails, and psychopathology among lawyers. The fourth section on jury instructions and jury decisionmaking looks at whether juries actually follow instructions given to them by judges, different jury instruction types, and the effectiveness of jury instruction practices. The final section of the book examines civil law and psychology. Attention is paid to expanding psycholegal inquiry in the analysis of attitudes toward corporate responsibility and to developing a psycholegal and empirical approach to the medical standard of care. Case, name, and subject indexes are included. Footnotes and tables